


Make Up Your Mind

by Eve_Louise (Stregatrek)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: A collection of scenes really not too much of a plot, A little light pining, Garak is so far gone, Happy ending don't worry, Julian Bashir is such a nerd, M/M, Song Lyrics, one mildly violent scene but it's not really graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 01:32:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9267716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stregatrek/pseuds/Eve_Louise
Summary: Songfic inspired by Florence+the Machine’s Make Up Your Mind





	

**Author's Note:**

> here's the song if anyone wants to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chxzDGNU88E  
> another example of my putting G/B subtext into any song I hear  
> Hope you like it!

_While you’ve been saving your neck ___  
_I’ve been breaking mine for you_  


*  


_Look what you’ve made of me… _Garak sighed as he looked at the sketches he’d made for Julian. _Sentimental, that’s what I am… Going soft in my old age.___  


“Hello, Garak,” Julian’s smile warmed the whole shop as the door swept open. “How are you today?”  


“Quite well,” Garak replied with a slight smile of his own. “I suppose you’re here to claim your latest commission for the holosuites?”  


Julian ducked his head. “I suppose you’re right. Is it done?”  


“Of course it is, my dear. If I were in the habit of leaving orders unfinished I’d hardly be much of a tailor, would I?” He went to the back and retrieved a hanger, carefully arranging the jacket. As he stepped back into the shop proper, he asked, “What do you think?”  


Julian had crossed the small space and stood looking at the sketches Garak had left on his counter. _Careless, _he cursed himself. Caught looking, the doctor’s head snapped up. “That’s great! Can I try it on?” His eyes moved back to the sketches on the counter, and Garak wondered if he saw himself in them.__  


“Yes, of course,” Garak handed the garment over, gesturing to the dressing room. Julian smiled and closed the door behind himself. Garak immediately swept the sketches into a drawer and locked it. “How do you like the fit?” he called after a moment.  


By the sound of it, Julian was entangled in something when he answered. “It’s- I like the trousers. I’m having a bit of trouble with the- clasps on the top,”  


Garak sighed slightly, amused. “They’re not meant to be complicated.”  


“Can you help me? Door’s unlocked.”  


A split-second pause, a shaky breath. _Was I always so easy to destabilize? _Garak asked himself. _Surely not… _He let his breath out again and pulled a bland smile into place, opening the door.____  


Julian had somehow pulled the shirt on back to front, and had one of the clasps caught in his hair. “Firstly, my dear, it’s meant to go on the other way.” It was easier to tease than to stand silently in such close quarters with his vulnerable, trusting human.  


“Sorry,” Bashir’s voice was sheepish through the soft fabric, and Garak smiled fondly. “Can you just get it out of my hair?”  


Deftly, he disentangled the doctor from the apparently quite complex period costume. “Just be sure to get dressed in your quarters. Waiting until the last minute is evidently going to cause you problems,”  


Emerging with a smile, Julian laughed. “I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. Thank you,” he shrugged out of the shirt and flipped it around, holding it to his chest the front way. “Better?”  


Garak thought of freezing rain, bad literature, and being followed around by Odo for a whole day. “Much, yes. Do you think you can manage from here?”  


“Sure, thank you,” Julian grinned again. “And if I get caught up you’ll be just on the other side of the door,”  


“Indeed I will,” Garak backed out and shut the door behind himself, cutting off the electric tingle that seemed to flow from Julian. He sighed as quietly as he could. _Who on earth have you made of me?_  


*  
_Let me leave or let me love you ___

*  


Was there absolutely no respite? Julian had on that charming grin again, the one that meant he was about to say something he thought would throw Garak off.  


“Hello, my dear.” Garak sat down across from him in the replimat.  


“I’ve been doing a little… historical studying,”  


Garak raised a brow. “Oh?”  


“As it turns out, we do have repetitive epics on Earth.”  


“Yes, I know.”  


Julian uncrossed his arms. “What! After all your criticism of the books I’ve lent you?”  


“You realize of course that European literature is not the only literature from Earth?” Garak smiled at the little huffing sound the doctor made.  


“Of course I know that. But just for the sake of argument-”  


Ah yes, anything for the sake of argument.  


“-Let’s say I’ve found a repetitive epic that takes its influence from the other Earth authors you’re so fond of denigrating, the European tradition.”  


Garak inclined his head. “For the sake of argument,”  


“Star Wars.” Julian leaned back triumphantly, crossing his arms.  


“I’m… sorry?”  


Eyes widening dramatically, Julian uncrossed his arms, looking thunderstruck. Garak took the moment to marvel at the range of unconscious motions the doctor made to telegraph his feelings on a subject. _Then why is he so hard to read, Elim? _He brushed away his own intrusive voice and paid attention to what Julian was saying… “You’ve never seen Star Wars?” …However inane it might be.__  


“I can’t say that I have.”  


“Oh, my god. Alright. Well, are you free tomorrow night? Let’s say sixteen hundred we’ll start, we should be able to get through all three originals if we stay up a bit.”  


Garak cocked his head. “How many of these Star Wars are there?”  


“Actually, there’s some debate about that- there are a few bad ones that some people don’t think count, but they’re so old I say they’re really all part of the same idea and who cares if a few are… less than cinematic masterpieces,”  


“How many, Julian?”  


“Well… keep your nights free for a week or so?”  


Garak sighed at the lengths he was willing to go to. “Very well, if you insist.” _If you really must take over all my conscious hours, I suppose I oughtn’t complain that you’ll be there with me._  


Apparently his whole life revolved around this ridiculous human and his bright smile. Garak wished Bashir would flirt back more concretely once in a while, rather than smiling through it and proposing that they spend evenings together for a week, watching holovids in the dark.  


Garak’s urge to slam his head on the flimsy replimat table was not easily checked.  


*  
_Every time I try to bring it down ___  
_You always turn my head around ___

*  


_Today’s the day. No more of this. _Garak was trying to be stern with himself. In the old days, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Perhaps nothing is a problem when you can kill it and disappear. Living with the choices you made gave a strange weight to them. He shook himself mentally, stepping into the replimat.__  


“Ah, there you are!” The sting was taken out of these words by those that followed them; “I was beginning to resent everyone who came around the corner and wasn’t you.”  


_Maybe tomorrow… _His resolve crumbled like wet clay in the face of Julian’s sunny smile, but before Garak could say anything, the Human had moved on: “Usually I’m the one who’s late, I’ll try to do better! I had no idea it was so much like being stood up. I got you tea,” he gestured at the table as Garak sat down. “And I wanted to talk to you about this book I found, it mentions trade being a precursor to actual colonial forces and I wanted your opinion…”__  


_Perhaps next week? _Now he was almost laughing at himself. “Of course my dear, tell me about it.”__  


*  
_Make up your mind ___  
_Before I make it up for you ___

*  


Julian was leaning across the table again, his elbow propped on the table as he gestured, his knee occasionally bumping Garak’s under the table.  


Garak was finding it fascinating, regardless of what the doctor was saying. Which was interesting, he supposed, but how long was one supposed to listen to medical jargon about polymerase chains when one could be watching those fluidly graceful motions, anticipating which gesture would bring their knees into contact again, even daring a glance at Julian’s lovely eyes or pretty mouth for a prolonged moment?  


“What do you think?”  


_Oh, dear. _“Medical opinions are rather more your area than mine,” Garak demurred.__  


“True, but I still value your opinion. Besides, sometimes it’s an outsider perspective that can lead to a breakthrough.”  


“Even the perspective of a simple tailor?”  


Julian leaned in confidentially, as if unaware of how close they already were. Garak wished that conscious effort would stop his pupils dilating or his heart beating faster, but nature had played another cruel trick on him. “I always value your perspective,”  


“Well, I hate to disappoint, my dear, but I’m not sure I fully understand your problem.”  


“Ah, I thought you looked a little distracted.” Julian’s eyes sparkled, and Garak didn’t mind so much that he was being laughed at.  


_Stop flirting or kiss me, damn you. _There was so little distance between them now, and Garak wished he could narrow the Universe down to just the two of them, banishing even the small table between them from existence. He reflected that it was probably lucky for the Universe that he hadn’t been born a Q.__  


“Garak?”  


“Oh- please do forgive me, my dear,” he realized he’d been staring at Julian again and shook himself. “I’ve been a little distracted tonight. It’s terribly rude of me, I realize.”  


Julian shrugged, drawing back across the table. Garak wished he could move with him, keep the distance between them from growing. “It’s alright, I understand being distracted at the end of the day. Perhaps we ought to stick to lunch,”  


“No-” Garak was too quick to answer, and tried to smooth over his demeanor. “I apologize, it’s nothing. Please, tell me again about your problem with the polymerase. I’ll give you my ‘outsider’s opinion,’ if you’re sure it will best all your medical technology,” he teased, putting on his most charming expression.  


“Ah, technology’s only as good as the person using it, and I was only second in my class. I assure you, I will find your opinion invaluable.” Bashir grinned back.  


“Yes, a post-ganglionic nerve, wasn’t it?” Garak asked, and Julian smiled, the laughter back in his eyes.  


“It was.”  


*  
_The executioner is within me and he comes blindfold ready ___  


*  


Quark’s Bar occasionally became a rough place, as anyone who’d ever set foot there could attest.  


Sometimes this fact evidenced itself in the form of shady characters on the upper balcony, watching Quark for the signal to meet or deliver merchandise. Sometimes it was a group of Nauusicans monopolizing the Dabo table by force. Once in a while it was a Klingon brawl.  


And sometimes, like that night, it was a rather massive and rather intoxicated freighter crewmember harassing a patron at the bar.  


When those involved were very unlucky, Odo wasn’t there. But Garak was, and the patron at the bar just happened to be one Julian Bashir.  


From the moment Garak strode in, looking around to meet Julian, Quark’s eyes were on him. ‘Get this guy out of here before Odo shows up and arrests us all,’ they seemed to be saying. Garak didn’t much care whether Quark were arrested that night or not, but Julian did look uncomfortable, and seemed to be running out of options as the freight man backed the doctor against the bar.  


“Hello,” Garak greeted amiably, tapping the man’s shoulder. “Excuse me, but you’re blocking my seat.”  


Behind him, he heard the Dabo wheels spin to a stop. He wished the other patrons of the bar would make less of show about watching the confrontation. It was really rather gauche of them. The spacer turned around, revealing a faceful of tusks. He growled.  


Garak raised his eyeridges. “Well, I’m sure there are plenty of other seats. You might try your hand at the Dabo wheel.”  


Another growl, accompanied by a step forward. Diplomacy zero; escalation one, then.  


Spine straight, the tailor held his ground. “Garak,” Julian’s voice sounded worried, but it also sounded as though he were speaking through a split lip, which did not bode well for the future of the freighter.  


The tusked alien took another step forward, hand going for the knife at his belt. Garak sighed. “Why must it always come to this? Violence is such a dirty business.” He seized the alien’s hand and twisted, turning the man’s arm away from the knife and taking it himself. Julian jumped out of the way as the freighter hit the bar face-down. Garak kicked the man’s feet from under him, forcing him to his knees, knife point touching his throat just enough to feel like a threat. “There, you see? Both of us will have creases for days, and for what? Quite a strain on one’s wardrobe, all this fighting business.”  


“Garak…” Julian was watching him, and against all expectations or reason he didn’t look afraid. _Silly man, _Garak thought, ignoring the fact that his heart was trying to fly from his chest.__  


He called his attention back to where it belonged, with the struggling spacer on his knees. “Quark, would you mind fetching Odo? I’m sure he’ll be able to deal with this to everyone’s satisfaction,” Garak tried to make his smile a little less predatory, but judging by the quickness with which Quark scampered off to find the constable it didn’t seem to have worked. The tusked freighter struggled, and Garak pulled lightly on the wrist he held captive, the arm to which it was attached perpendicular to the ground. Judging by the cringe and immediate silence of the arm’s owner, it must have been quite painful. “Are you alright, my dear?” He asked Julian, whose expression was still rather disarmingly sweet.  


“Yes, thank you. I’ll be fine- I had him backing down anyway,”  


Garak quelled a smile “Of course you did, Julian,”  


“What’s this, then?” Odo harrumphed.  


Garak affected a look of pure innocence, as though he held flowers instead of a nearly-dislocated arm. “Self-defense, my dear constable,”  


Odo narrowed his eyes. “Can anyone collaborate that, Mr. Garak?”  


“The whole bar, I suppose, as they made such a show of watching.”  


Odo looked around, and the crowd loudly went back to their business. Across the room, Leeta shrieked, “Dabo!” Things continued as normal.  


“It really was,” Quark said, behind the bar again, nonchalantly cleaning glasses as though the whole thing had nothing to do with him.  


“He had me sort of pinned, and then he went for his knife when Garak asked him to move,” Julian explained, fumbling with a dermal generator he kept behind the bar just for incidents like this- though usually he wasn’t using it on himself.  


Odo cast a critical eye over the tusked alien with his face jammed against the bar. “Alright, come on you,” he said, prodding, and Garak let the spacer up. “And as for you, I’d stick to wrestling with fabric bolts, and your apparently tenuous grasp of station rules. One of which is no fighting,” Odo glowered.  


“Of course, constable, I’ll make reviewing them my first priority,” Garak smiled charmingly, making a slight bow. “Thank you so much for your help.”  


“I’ll come by the brig and check him over,” Julian assured Odo, who grumbled as he marched the tusked spacer out of the bar. Julian replaced the dermal generator in his medkit and reached over the bar to tuck it back on its shelf. “Well, Quark, I think you owe us a round of free drinks for that,” he said, smiling.  


Rolling his eyes, Quark didn’t even water down the kanar he passed over the bar for Garak. “Fine, but all _you’re _getting is spring wine. I’ve got too much of the stuff anyway.” He filled a glass and handed it to Julian. “And I expect you to leave it alone after this.”__  


“Of course,” Julian grinned. “Come on, Garak, I see a free table on the upper level.”  


Garak followed Julian through the crowd, ignoring the eyes on him, trying to hunch his shoulders and move as innocuously as possible up the stairs. “Are you sure you’re quite alright, my dear?” he asked as they settled themselves at the table.  


“Quite alright, thanks to you,” Julian smiled at him, and the familiar warmth rose in Garak’s chest. “I suppose that was one of the skills you picked up as a gardener?”  


Garak took a sip of kanar. “You have no idea the things people will do to get certain breeds of Vulcan Orchids. One must always be ready to defend one’s flower pots.”  


Julian laughed, and that sound was worth the silence of the bar as they had watched the altercation.  


“Well, thank you,” Julian said, and as he settled back into his seat their legs came into contact below the table from foot to knee. Garak didn’t comment, and Julian didn’t move.  


They sat like that until Julian’s medical conscience compelled him to go check over the freighter crewman for injury. Garak watched him go with concerning fondness, sighing at himself.  


*  
_Make up your mind ___  
_Before I make it up for you ___

*  


It was odd, but at some point they had added dinner to their schedule of weekly lunch dates. Garak found himself outside Bashir’s quarters once more, waiting until exactly nineteen hundred to press the door chime. He supposed it had begun with the Star Wars marathon, which juvenile and ill-fated as it was had led to a tradition of dinner and holofilm discussions. He shuddered to think of many of the prequels and remakes to which he owed the pleasure, but couldn’t deny that a pleasure it was to sit in the dark with Julian and comment on the stories and effects of the older vid tapes. He suspected that some were chosen just to make him cringe, so that Julian could laugh and they could roundly abuse the creators of such drivel. The last time, Julian had even gotten a bottle of kanar. Garak smiled.  


Nineteen hundred. He pressed the panel, and the door slid open.  


Julian’s quarters were just slightly darker than the already-low light he usually set them to when Garak was over, and pleasantly warm. It was lovely to step inside from the bright, cold hallway- but Garak was on alert, wondering why the controls had been set differently. “Julian?”  


“Yes, over here,” he was struggling with something, and Garak spotted him beside the table wrestling with a bottle which made a rather loud noise when it finally opened, causing the Cardassian to tense unthinkingly, sweeping the room quickly for threats. “Ugh, sorry, that was a mess,” Julian was shaking liquid off his hand, pouring the drink into a glass, and Garak smoothed his posture back into his easy just-a-tailor-no-need-to-fear stance.  


“What is it?”  


“Champagne! I got Quark to get me a real bottle, not the fake stuff that goes flat in a minute,”  


Garak drew closer, wary of his own warm feelings. “I was under the impression that this was rather a celebratory drink,”  


“Well, it is, usually,” Julian’s blush was only evident to Cardassian eyes in the low light, and Garak wondered what it meant. Probably he’d gotten the bottle for a date with someone who had wound up rejecting him, and now he was just trying to get rid of it and avoid having the reminder in his quarters. Yes, that would be it. “I just thought it might be nice, tonight. It’s been a few months since you came for Star Wars, I thought we should celebrate that you’ve put up with my taste in films for this long,” He smiled charmingly at Garak, who despite himself felt his pulse flutter.  


“Come now, my dear, they aren’t _all _that bad,”__  


Julian sat down at the table, and Garak followed suit. “I’m glad you think so,” the doctor smiled. “But I wouldn’t make any hasty judgements. We’ve still got a few of my favorites to go,”  


“And what have you decided on tonight?”  


“It’s a little more recent than some of the others, a 23rd century retelling of a very old Earth story, the Tale of the Torn Sleeve. Do you know it?” Julian’s eyes looked quite bright, but perhaps it was the soft lighting contrasting more highly than usual.  


“I do not, but I look forward to being enlightened.” Garak smiled at the charming young man across from him, surprised when Julian’s returning earnest smile was accompanied by their knees brushing under the table. Though, with the frequency that that had been happening of late, Garak supposed he should stop being surprised and start being suspicious.  


“It’s the story of an emperor who loved his consort so much that once, when the man was asleep on his sleeve and the emperor was called out of bed, he cut off the sleeve rather than wake his partner.” Julian’s eyelashes fluttered, a slight grin playing around his lips that Garak would have called flirtatious directed at anyone else.  


He was used to leaving these movie nights with a few embers of desire smoldering inside his chest, but to have that fire kindled so early in the night was… unexpected. “I see. A very human gesture of attachment. I simply _cannot _comprehend how you treat clothes in such a cavalier way,” never mind that he’d cut up his whole wardrobe for Julian. They really were only clothes, after all.__  


Julian laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when to cover your eyes,” he reached across the table to place a hand on Garak’s arm, a gesture doubtlessly meant to be reassuring. His knees bumped Garak’s again, and the Cardassian very nearly caught his breath. It was truly a testament to how far gone he was for this human that such small gestures made him feel as though tiny blazes roared under his skin, singeing his nerve endings and making him repress small tremors in his spine. Quakes and blazes- Julian Bashir truly was a force of nature.  


“I appreciate the gesture, my dear,” Garak laughed with him, brushing his hand over Julian’s where it still sat on his arm, never one to miss an opportunity. “But I think I can handle the sight of such violence if the film is otherwise adequate.”  


“I think it’s more than adequate. In fact, it’s one of my favorites; I’ve been meaning to show it to you for a long time,” Julian’s hand turned, catching Garak’s fingers in his own.  


Garak had been around long enough that it took more than holding hands to take his breath away, but this was close. “Have you really,”  


“Yes, if you’re alright with it,” Julian’s fingers moved softly, almost imperceptibly against Garak’s, and he found it impossible to decide whether to watch it happen or continue to gaze at Julian, whose lips were parted slightly, eyes half-lidded and staring back at Garak.  


His eloquence was failing him. “I am, of course I am.”  


“What are you looking at?” Julian asked quietly.  


Garak sighed softly, caught and finally tired of extricating himself. “You,” He raised his free hand to brush Julian’s cheek lightly, half waiting to wake up.  


A slight blush rose to Julian’s cheeks and he smiled. “I-”  


“You talk far too much,” Garak teased him. “Would you consider kissing me as an alternative?”  


Julian grinned. “I suppose if the alternative offered more benefits than the talking does,”  


“All I have to offer is what you already know of me,” _And it’s not enough, not nearly enough, __  
_

_“Sold,” the younger man stood to lean over the table. He cupped Garak’s jaw gently, kissing him sweetly and completely failing to notice that he’d put his elbow in the serving dish. Ah, love.  
_


End file.
